An oenophile (and foodie), a dork, and an adventurer, I will take you on my journeys into wine (and food). Happy drinking!

Friday, March 21, 2008

Respect Beer

The title says enough, but let me elaborate on my relationship with beer.

After forcing myself to like Keystone Light in college, I gave up on beer for a few years. (Some bad nights/mornings led to an extreme distaste for the hoppy beverage.)

Then I fell for wine, in all its varied splendor. While wine (like coffee, whiskey, and gin, in my opinion) rarely impresses upon the first time it touches your tongue, I was intrigued by this interesting beverage. It involved geography, botany, chemistry, and artistry. After a year or so riding the wine wagon and developing a discerning palate, I came to appreciate the artistry of beer.

Even more so lately, as I begin to draw huge similarities between beer and wine, I understand it as geographical (but not to the purported degree that wine is), which rocks my socks. Beer pairs with much food just as well, if not better than most wines (aside from the bubbly). The beer industry has many of the same issues that the wine industry faces: monster corperations, overblown beers (like qintuple IPAs), and people with a fear to try new and interesting beers from different places. Anyway. Gotta love the suds.